3 Tips to Add to Your Body Care Routine This Winter

How to do it: Using long, smooth strokes, start at the bottom of your feet and work your way up your body toward your heart. Do this before showering, it only takes a few minutes. After you shower, apply a good natural moisturizer. By the way, remember to brush gently. Your skin should not be red, stinging, or bleeding when you're done!

Hydrate. Because we don't sweat as much in the winter as we do in the summer, we usually don't feel the need to drink as much water. But the recommendation to drink two liters of water a day is great advice no matter what season we’re in. Our body depends on water to survive. It needs water to maintain proper temperature, remove waste, and lubricate our joints. Water gives us energy, mental clarity, and even helps with weight loss. Coffee, tea, sodas, and alcoholic drinks are no substitute, in fact, they dehydrate your body instead.

So what if you don't like water? What can you do? I add a lemon to my water. It improves the taste, and more importantly, it helps my liver to maximize enzyme function, stimulates and aids detoxification, thereby flushing unwanted waste out of my system. I love it! You can also add some essential oils to your water, like Lime, Lemon, Orange, Grapefruit, or Peppermint Vitality oils. These oils give your water a fantastic flavor that is so addictive it’ll leave you wanting more. Water is absolutely essential! So show appreciation for your body, and do what you have to in order to build up your desire to drink water.

Clean and deodorize. Finally, the answer to the question posed in the beginning—which season is worse for body odor? In the country I visited, winter odors were worse by far than the summer odors. Cleanliness (and deodorant) was sorely lacking. This was never more apparent than when riding the subways—trapped in tiny train cars surrounded by people wearing wool sweaters that, I'm sure, were given as high-school graduation gifts and were meant to be worn every day until they fell apart, decomposed, or were to be buried with the recipient when he dies. At least, that's the best way to describe the incredibly potent smell that was locked into those wool fibers. Additionally, the normal, customary shower wasn't such a custom in the winter, whereas the summer heat usually dictated one, sometimes, two showers a day (at least let’s hope so). So the bacteria that naturally breaks down and causes body odor was not being washed away as regularly in the winter as it was in the summer.

Therefore, never underestimate your body's need for a shower. This is a good and healthy habit. However, avoid long, hot showers as they can dry out your skin, especially in the already dry winter months. Make it a goal to keep your showers to ten minutes or less, and use cool or lukewarm water. Using a mild body wash, focus on the areas that need cleaning. Use soap only on the “poo-poo, pee-pee pits,” as my friend calls them, and not on your arms and legs, unless necessary. This will help keep your skin from drying out.

And please, before leaving the house, apply a natural deodorant so you can feel good knowing that you're not putting anything carcinogenic on your skin or lymph nodes. Deodorant is a simple act—a courtesy and kindness--that shows others that you care about them, but also, more importantly, that you care about yourself.

So choose to Nest Pretty and dry brush your skin, hydrate, hydrate, hydrate, bathe and deodorize. These are just a few of my beauty habits that I can wholeheartedly recommend for others to try or to continue doing. By doing them, you can feel confident about your body in the summer and hibernate responsibly during the long, cold winter.

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